AN addiction to shoplifting cost a mother-of-two her liberty, her dignity and almost her life.
The compulsion to steal began as a diversion from the misery of her life following the break up of her relationship.
Now after more than a decade of brushes with the law and a spell in prison, the Huddersfield woman – who does not want to be identified for fear her family will discover her criminal past – has discovered she was suffering from kleptomania – a pathological desire to steal.
The middle-aged woman – who we will call June – said: “Before my family breakdown I had a good happy, privileged life with two children and a job and no problems with depression.
“Then there were problems in my relationship and my life started to go downhill. None of the family was happy. We decided to go our own ways and it caused a lot of upset and misery.
“I was on a road to destruction. Everything fell apart, I lost two businesses, a divorce and my children didn’t want anything to do with me.”
Amid the guilt of her family split, June fell into a deep depression.
Finding herself alone and unhappy on a supermarket trip for one, she decided to slip some pork chops into her handbag.
Being relatively well off, she paid for the rest of her shopping and walked out without getting caught.
The buzz of excitement from the petty theft sparked more than a decade of shoplifting random items from shops and supermarkets around Kirklees.
She said: “When I first took the pork chops I liked the feeling it gave me. I thought ‘ooh I might try this again’.
“Things started to get worse. Shoplifting wasn’t on my mind but I started to do things like taking a packet of biscuits.
“I think it gave me a lift because I was so, so depressed.
“Over the years it started becoming a habit. Initially it did lift my mood enormously – it was a buzz. I couldn’t even tell you what I was taking. I was out of control. I was living to shoplift.”
Over the years June was arrested numerous times. But the long arm of the law did little to stem her desire to steal.
“It didn’t frighten me at all,” she said. “I was on my own. I felt very lonely and liked the attention.”
The thefts continued and so did the arrests. Huddersfield magistrates eventually lost patience, handing her a three-month prison sentence.
It had little effect.
“It didn’t do anything to stop me,” she explained. “It was nice to be with people and I did feel comfortable there. That didn’t deter me at all.”
On her release from prison an attempt to turn her life around failed and she again dropped into a deep depression and says she became suicidal.
“I was put on some medication to stabilise my moods but I was living like a recluse,’’ she said.
“I took anything. It was just things I could put in my bag. A lot of the time they were things I didn’t want. I had no use for them like food, bits of make-up, wrapping paper.
“Even at the police station I was looking round for bits to steal.
“It was the first thing I thought about when I woke up as I had nothing else to occupy my mind.
“It just became an addiction.
“I was absolutely distraught about it and I read books about it. Every day I said ‘I’m not going to do it’ but I knew I would.
“It was getting to the point where I was suicidal. I just didn’t want to live any longer. Nobody seemed to be able to help.”
Last March another shopping trip turned to disaster after she was spotted on CCTV shoplifting while out with her grandchild.
Having been arrested at a later date she was finally given the wake-up call she needed when a concerned police officer spelled out what would have happened if she’d have been caught red-handed.
The realisation that her grandchild would have been dragged to a police station and her decade long secret would have been broken made her vow never to steal again.
The officer that day, Pc Angela Lister, promised to support her and six months on is still helping her get over her problem.
Pc Lister said she instantly recognised June was not a typical thief and felt compelled to step in for the sake of her family.
Pc Lister explained: “I’m a nana too and I’ve got quite a few grandchildren and all I could think about was what would have happened to this little kiddie if we’d arrested her at the scene.
“That child would have come to the police station too and we would have had to phone the youngster’s parents. When it affects an innocent child I find that a bit upsetting and I just said it as it was – ‘do you realise the consequences?’
“She was mortified. She’d never thought of the consequences and that day she did.”
Pc Lister encouraged June to seek medical advice, even supporting her on a visit to her GP.
Desperate to understand why she was stealing things she didn’t want or need and having kept her criminality a secret from her family and friends – even during her three months in jail – June decided to turn to a psychiatrist for answers.
The diagnosis revealed she had a recurrent depressive disorder and was unable to resist impulses to steal even though the items were not needed for personal use or their monetary value.
The disorder is more commonly known as kleptomania.
“I’d never heard the word,” she said. “I researched an addiction to shoplifting but they were all cases in America. Mine seemed far worse than what these people were writing about.
“I was trying to cure myself but the more I tried the more it took hold of me. I was absolutely obsessed.
“I have looked for support and how they treat alcoholics because I felt I wasn’t only damaging myself but everybody. But it was secret, nobody knew it. That was one of the reasons why I did it for so long.”
June is now serving a curfew for her final offence but says without Pc Lister’s intervention she would have ended it all.
She said: “I tried to lie and make out I hadn’t done it and Angela stepped in and from then I’ve just seen everything in a different light.
“I think if she hadn’t been there I would have committed suicide – I had everything in place to do it.
“It was though she had known me for a long, long time. That was the only time in all these years that anybody had spelt it out exactly as it was. I realised it wasn’t what I wanted my life to be.
“If it wasn’t for her I wouldn’t be here today.”
June is now hoping to launch a new business and, while she suffers from paranoia and panic attacks, says she has no compulsion to shoplift.
She said: “The shame and guilt will never go away but I can come home and think I’ve not stolen anything today and that feels good.
“I just want to make up for all the lost time and just live a normal life.”
June and Pc Lister are now calling for more support for kleptomania sufferers.
“It’s not like you can ring the shoplifting helpline,’’ said Pc Lister.
“There doesn’t seem to be anything in place.
“It doesn’t matter what background you come from, whether you live on a council estate or in a mansion, anybody can commit crime, it just depends what circumstances you find yourself in.
“It’s important for people to know it can happen to anybody.”
